Over a decade ago, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell offered advice to students at the LBJ School of Public Affairs regarding productivity, economics, and the future of corporations. His insights on handling player actions in game worlds, particularly distinguishing between malicious hacking and emergent gameplay, continue to be relevant for game developers.
A recurring theme from Newell's talk, now circulating in short clips from the Webknower YouTube channel, centers on how game developers perceive and react to player actions. Newell highlighted a common pitfall: mistaking entertaining player-driven events for malicious hacking. He cited the infamous incident in Ultima Online where Lord British, a character controlled by creator Richard Garriott, was killed by a player. The developers' response was to roll back the server, an action Newell argued was a mistake.
In earlier single-player Ultima titles, Lord British was designed with immense defenses to deter players from attacking him. This very challenge, however, prompted some players to find ways around these protections, such as using shipboard cannons or the Skull of Mondain artifact. The Ultima Online event involved a player named Rainz, who, through a high-level pickpocketing skill, acquired a fire field spell scroll. Coincidentally, Garriott had neglected to re-enable his character's invincibility after a server reset immediately preceding the event. This allowed Rainz's spell to kill Lord British.
Instead of embracing this unexpected turn of events, the developers banned Rainz and reset the server, effectively erasing the incident. Newell posited that embracing such player-led storytelling would have been more compelling than the game's planned narrative. The assassination of Lord British has since become a notable piece of MMO lore, a story that developers may still share with new hires, demonstrating the lasting impact of embracing player agency even when it deviates from the intended path.